“What this says to me is that D&D is not interested in continuing to be at the forefront of what RPG sourcebooks can be,” said D&D player and editor Leslie Light. It was a slow sinking-in - not outrage, but a series of questions spurred by what I saw, read, researched and talked about with other D&D players: Why did publisher Wizards of the Coast choose to resurrect their fraught pan-Africa campaign setting in 2017?Ĭonsidering that the average D&D city is an amalgamation of European cultures, why is it rubbing me, and others, that Chult is an amalgamation of African cultures? What would it be like for me as a non-black Dungeon Master to replicate the “tongue clicks” of the black tribal cultures players encounter? Did any people of colour work on this?Īnd, most importantly - this is a fantasy role-playing game, so why didn’t D&D‘s stewards at Wizards of the Coast exercise a little more creativity?
It wasn’t something that jumped out at me. I was also surprised to read about a black culture - 5th edition’s first - that seemed to trade in dated stereotypes of African cultures. I’d cracked open the 256-page tome eagerly, excited not only to study the maps, monsters and storylines laid out in its pages, but also to see what next steps D&D was taking to acknowledge the demographic breadth of its players in its tabletop fantasies.įlipping through Tomb of Annihilation, I found enchanting dungeons and gorgeous art and impressive puzzles and traps. I’ve been exploring my reaction and that of other D&D players since I first read D&D‘s latest adventure, Tomb of Annihilation, a month ago. This is a fantasy role-playing game - anyone can be anything - so why did the way D&D designed 5th edition’s first black culture feel so lazy? That changed this year with D&D‘s latest adventure, which now describes that society as a lively mercantile people based in that former colony.īut the newly-released adventure has left me and other D&D players disappointed.
There have been black people, but no black civilisations except for a relatively small group of survivors of a catastrophe and locals living under colonists’ control.īack in 2008, D&D‘s traditional African-analogue tribal society hailed from a “savage,” disease-ridden jungle. For nearly a decade, there hasn’t been more than a vestige of a black society in the official world of Dungeons & Dragons.
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